Mercosur

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Award for Falklands' war film in Spain

  “Enlightened by fire”, the Argentine film on the Falklands/Malvinas war, partly filmed on location, has been awarded the Goya Prize to the “best Spanish speaking foreign film” in the twentieth edition of the renowned Barcelona, Spain Cinema Festival.

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Queen Mary 2 on schedule to Ushuaia/Punta Arenas

  The cruise liner Queen Mary 2 with its 2.600 passengers is currently sailing for Ushuaia and Punta Arenas after having spent thirteen hours in Montevideo where Cunard Lines put on a big public relations operation.

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Uruguay disagreement opens door for Argentina's case in The Hague

  “This issue is confronting two brother countries and is exacerbating nationalism,” said Uruguayan Deputy Víctor Semproni, a former bank clerks' union boss of the ruling Broad Front.

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Chile's Bachelet names her cabinet.

  President-elect Michelle Bachelet officially announced 20 cabinet members early Monday evening, naming a mix of old and new political leaders ? 10 men and 10 women - to head the various ministerial posts in her government.

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  British medical support for Brazil's oil industry

  British Trade Minister Ian Pearson launched the Berkeley Training Centre in Macae, 182 kmts. away from Rio do Janeiro which will be the first Medical training centre aimed at the oil and gas industry in Latin America.

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Low cost of living in most Mercosur cities

  Mercosur capitals figure in the lower half of the world's most expensive cities according to a biannual The Economist Intelligence Unit study which has Oslo, Norway top of the list and Teheran, Iran ranking as the cheapest.

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Fed raises rates to 4.5%, highest since April 2001

  Arguing that possible increases in resource utilization as well as elevated energy prices have the potential to add inflation pressures the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee decided Tuesday to raise its target for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 4.5%.

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  OPEC keeps quota unchanged until next meeting

  The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, (OPEC) oil ministers decided Tuesday in Vienna to keep the official quota of 28 million bpd while the group's second biggest producer Iran, locked in a dispute over its atomic program, gave assurances it would not halt its exports.

• Tuesday, January 31st 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  Dollar and assets bubble, challenges for new Fed chief

  The United States Senate approved Tuesday the nomination of Ben Bernanke to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, generally considered the most influential economic policy job in the world.

• Monday, January 30th 2006 - 20:00 UTC

  More than 500 Patagonian toothfish marked for research

  Since 2004, the National Institute for Fisheries Research and Development (INIDEP) has been carrying on a capture-mark-recapture programme for Patagonian toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides), aimed at providing relevant information about this resource management in the South-western Atlantic ocean.